The main tool for continuous improvement

I like the image of a forest to describe a company that improves. Why a forest? Although by an imperceptible amount, virtually all trees grow inexorably. Obviously, for some reason, there will be a negligible number of trees that have problems and that unfortunately will follow different paths: disease, fires, landslides, artificial deforestation; however, the idea of a compact set of living beings that grows and becomes stronger, taller, healthier and more luxuriant remains.

To improve or restore a company it is necessary to start from the roots and ensure that it is not only a few who improve, even less if the few but good are not at the base or in the key departments of the organization. There are different types of companies that, by their specific nature, can follow different improvement processes, with shock therapies that often go well. In any case, I feel I can say that, in most cases, it is necessary to trigger the movement from the base: little by little, constantly and methodically, pushing important projects without ever diverting, even if often the urgent tends to hide the important.

What is the recipe for all the points of the company to become themselves a source of continuous improvement? Involvement, coaching, training, sharing, team building, team spirit, motivation, gratification and gradually we can fill ourselves with words taken from rivers of literature: all certainly excellent concepts. But then, in practice, what do we do? Which tree in the forest will grow better than others?

Importance of the hiring process

I like to think that, in a modern organization, during the candidate search/interview phase, special attention has to be paid in the ability, natural or built, to favor the advancement of the careers of others, especially subordinates (in the good sense of the term).

Often, I happened to understand quite quickly the solution to a problem or a nice improvement: at that moment I stop and think: do I better “kick down” start right away, making myself leader and manager of the project, or should I ask for help to Mario, who lives the process daily and, chatting at the coffee break or in the canteen? I might then cast a light on the way by making him first aware of the problem, then give him a glimpse of the solution?...

The coffee break ends, a few days pass, but let's not forget the chat we had previously. Well, if even 3 times out of 10 Mario calls you and shows you how he worked on that problem, you can consider this a personal success.

Do not flaunt it, Let Mario take the credit: he will increase his self-esteem, improve his ability to solve problems because he will simply have more "desire" to recognize them. It is difficult at the time of the interview, to understand who are the candidates who have this skill, or if they will be able to build it. Surely it must be a goal. The ability to improve the organization also passes from recognizing when it is necessary to put yourself in the shade to give light to the collaborators at the base: you go where they take you.

The importance of having "enlightening" bosses

Here then the concept is reversed: an “illuminato” (enlightened) boss then becomes a boss who illuminates others. A tree that lives under the "protective" shade of another, larger and more luxuriant, will always be alive, but it will not be able to develop in full: safe but suffocated. The boss thus turns into a leader, from enlightened to enlightening

However, not everyone who is willing to develop an improvement is able to formalize it and become small project managers. The more the base is able to "see" "problems", even if they are often simple opportunities for improvement, the more important it is to better the level of formalization, without exceeding in bureaucracy: in fact, formalization takes time and collides with the nature of many collaborators who cannot or do not think they are able to.

Here the enlightening leader intervenes and teaches to formalize a plan in a clear, simple and fast way, define the actors, the times, the critical issues (without calling it a critical path), the constraints, the costs and the return, be it in quality, profit or both, evaluate the results, act with some corrective action and standardize where possible. In fact, we combined the PDCA with a bit of 5S

When your guys will be able to explain the weekly or monthly report, in less than 10 minutes, with the progress of the projects, instead of hesitating in meetings where everything is talked about and little is said, they will never stop thanking you. Especially if the final meetings are held on Friday afternoon ...

Sophisticated project management software is available, as well as not being free, but it can be intimidating in the backs of who project manager is not. A clear and simple excel sheet very often can be what we need, although it would be useful to at least standardize it within the organization. The important thing is that of keeping it always as the reference and that it is always up to date.

I could not miss my personal tool that I attach to the post: easy and intuitive, it also presents a time window with 8 months in the future and 8 months in the past, useful to have a glance on “already expired” and “expiring soon” activities.

As always, free and easy to use

EffBee

PROJECT_New_S_Pot

.rar

Download RAR • 180KB